Indi Guy
Indi Guy's JournalSwedish professor nominates Edward Snowden for the Nobel Peace Prize...
Source: Daily Mail
...In a letter addressed to the Norwegian Nobel Committee and published in Swedish newspaper Västerbottens-Kuriren, Professor Stefan Svallfors nominated Snowden for his 'heroic effort at great personal cost' shedding light on the expansive cyber-spying conducted by the U.S. National Security Agency.
Because of his bravery, Snowden 'helped to make the world a little bit better and safer,' Svallfors wrote.
A nomination for Snowden would be symbolic because it shows 'that individuals can stand up for fundamental rights and freedoms.'
Svallfors compares Snowden's act to the rulings in the Nuremberg trials of 1945 because 'I was just following orders' was not held as a viable excuse for the Nazis who carried out human rights atrocities...
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2363191/Edward-Snowden-nominated-Nobel-Peace-Prize-Swedish-Professor.html
Senate GOP Vows Payback For Nuclear Option, Ignores Own Role In Filibuster Fight...
Source: Huffington Post
WASHINGTON -- When Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) declared Thursday that he intended to push ahead with a "nuclear option" rules change in order to confirm a handful of President Barack Obama's stalled nominees, Republicans declared that he was destroying the world's greatest deliberative body -- and that he would pay for it.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) went so far as to declare that Reid would be remembered as the "worst leader of the Senate ever" if he changed procedural rules with just a 51-vote majority -- instead of the usual super-majority -- to help nominees evade threats of filibuster.
Democrats responded that Republicans had already destroyed the chamber by using blocking tactics to turn every nomination (and much legislation) into a drawn-out, time-consuming fight that eats time from the rest of the country's business and hamstrings the executive branch's ability to function.
The heated rhetoric requires some context. The Senate has changed its rules in mid-session before, and the reform Reid is talking about is relatively narrow, applying only to administrative nominees in the executive branch. But it's still a bombshell because it targets the core advice-and-consent duty of the Senate, and because use of the nuclear option has been threatened before, but the historically judicious body has not actually used it. Proponents dub the maneuver the constitutional option...
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/14/senate-nuclear-option_n_3592496.html?utm_hp_ref=politics
North Carolina’s Jobless Face a Double Whammy of Aid Reductions...
Source: Washington Post
...North Carolina is joining the growing ranks of states that have decided they can no longer shoulder the growing financial burden of the unemployed. But it stands alone in violating a law that disqualifies its jobless from collecting federally funded unemployment benefits, which would allow the state’s jobless to collect up to 47 weeks of additional aid.
The reason is the way North Carolina — which at 9.2 percent has the nation’s fifth-highest jobless rate — went about slashing its benefits.
Not only did the state reduce the maximum number of weeks someone could collect state benefits from 26 to 20, it also reduced the maximum weekly benefit from $535 to $350. On top of that, North Carolina is reworking how unemployment benefits are calculated, which advocates say will reduce the average weekly benefit from about $296 to the low $200s.
“It is a self-inflicted wound,” said George Wentworth, senior staff attorney of the National Employment Law Project...
Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/north-carolinas-jobless-face-a-double-whammy-of-aid-reductions/2013/02/14/6e32fa2c-7601-11e2-95e4-6148e45d7adb_story.html
Change.org is hosting a petition against NC's actions to:
- Cut the maximum benefit amount by 1/3 to $350 per week: No state has ever made such a severe cut.
- Cut all benefits by changing to a formula no other state uses.
- Cut the maximum weeks of benefits from 26 weeks to a sliding scale of 12-20 weeks. Only two other states (Florida and Georgia) do this.
- Cut benefits for workers who lose their job because of health reasons or family reasons.
- Cut off federally-funded extended benefits completely to 80,000 North Carolinians as of July 1, 2013. NO STATE HAS EVER DONE THIS.
Petition -- https://www.change.org/petitions/stop-north-carolina-s-attack-on-it-s-unemployed-workers#share
National Anti-Fracking Group Launched...
Source: Fort Worth Star Telegram
A new group called Americans Against Fracking, which claims more than 100 members including environmental, civic and religious groups, said it seeks a national ban on hydraulic fracturing "and drilling associated with fracking."
The group in a news release says that efforts to regulate the industry have been unsuccessful and only an outright ban will suffice, along with restrictions on related oil and gas production activities.
Read more: http://blogs.star-telegram.com/barnett_shale/2012/12/national-anti-fracking-group-launched.html
CDC: HIV rates high among young gay men, many unaware they're infected...
Source: CBS NEWS
To achieve an AIDS-free generation, the federal government is setting its sights on America's youth, a segment of the population with high infection rates -- and low testing rates.
Of the estimated 12,200 new HIV infections that occurred in 2010 in the 13-to-24 age group, 72 percent were in young men who have sex with men (MSM) and 57 percent occurred in black Americans.
More than half of all youths infected -- 60 percent -- don't even realize they have the disease, the new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed.
[font color="red"]
- Make HIV testing routine for all, not just those at high risk, panel urges
- HIV scientists release road map for cure: "Today's the first step"
- National HIV Testing Day urges all Americans ages 13-64 to get tested...
[font size="1"]By Ryan Jaslow / CBS News/ November 27, 2012, 2:37 PM[/font]
Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-204_162-57554994/cdc-hiv-rates-high-among-young-gay-men-many-unaware-theyre-infected/
Typical of the latter day GOP, when the lies fail to convince - stay the course...
...and double down when things get desperate.
McCain's untruths are not unlike Romney's emphatic and cynical lies re: Chrysler shipping jobs to China -- which are not unlike Bush's intractable lies re: WMD (which, ironically enough, were propagated by the soon to be Secretary of State, one Condoleezza Rice, whom McCain unblinkingly voted to confirm).
...So much home-grown bad faith by the GOP. Is it no wonder that, weary of the steady onslaught of transparently deceitful propaganda, the majority of the public voted against the corrosive snake-belly politics of lowest common denominator? ...Where politicians, when desperate, race not to the right left or center -- but to the very bottom?
Rachel Maddow Smacks Down John McCain, ‘You need to know what you’re talking about’...
Source: Politics USA
Rachel Maddow smacked down the defacto foreign policy leader of the Republican Party, Republican Senator John McCain, for being both wrong and incompetent on foreign policy...
...Noting that the Republican Party still hasn’t admitted they got Iraq wrong, and that they ran Mitt Romney who has zero foreign policy experience, Rachel Maddow sees Republicans as allowing McCain to be their voice for foreign policy. This is a problem for the country since he is so often completely wrong on the subject.
After playing a Chris Hayes montage of McCain getting it wrong repeatedly entitled “Arm the Rebels”, Maddow delivered the final blow:
Read more: http://www.politicususa.com/rachel-maddow-smacks-john-mccain-you-youre-talking-about.html
Award Winning Documentary Re:
...fracking. This has to stop.
Fracking Sand May Pose Health Hazard To Workers, Residents (VIDEO)...
Source: Huffington Post
"I didn't know what it was," he recalled. "But two minutes later my chest was burning. It burned all night."
In the two years since, Ferullo has watched similar dust clouds travel as far as a mile, he estimates, from gas drilling operations around his home in Bradford County, Pa. He has also since learned what hazards they may carry. One component in particular concerns Ferullo, as well as other residents and environmental health experts: silica sand, a long-known cause of debilitating and deadly diseases such as silicosis and lung cancer.
"At frack sites, silica gets into the air and you get these huge plumes of dust that can be breathed in by workers and anybody nearby, downwind," said Miriam Rotkin-Ellman, scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council...
Embedded video:
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/16/fracking-sand-health-hazard-_n_2146992.html?utm_hp_ref=green
Profile Information
Member since: Sat Oct 13, 2007, 06:04 AMNumber of posts: 3,992